Ten former drug addicts, currently under rehabilitation and on methadone maintenance treatment, allege that plainclothes cops often wait outside the Penang General Hospital to demand bribes from them.

This was to avoid being detained for possession of the drug.

This was revealed by the group in a press conference together with the DAP in Penang.

Methadone, is provided by the Health Ministry as a replacement for other drugs, such as heroin.

koay teng hai press conference 110611 Beginning in 2007, the ministry has initiated the programme in eight clinics around Penang to rehabilitate about 500 drug addicts in the General Hospital alone.

The group, accompanied by Pulau Tikus assemblyperson Koay Teng Hai ( right ), lamented that the addicts were often treated as a "money tree" by the so-called policemen.

According to the state party secretary, the patients need to visit the hospital on a daily basis to obtain fresh supplies of the drugs, so that they are able to function normally.

However, this group risks being detained outside the hospital, where they would be drug-tested by the police laboratory, and found to be "ketamine positive," claimed Koay.

"Since there is a high possibility the urine result would be positive, the police usually threaten to send them to the lock-up unless they pay coffee money," he alleged.

"Most of them have been in the lock up for three days, but some have not even been charged until today. Others were often released without being charged after the court had obtained their full health report from Kuala Lumpur," he added.

Koay said the so-called police officers involved in the matter never revealed their identities, even though the group had been able to produce their treatment cards authorised by the government.

The cards would be simply ignored and at time, official letters regarding their sickness, would be torn up by the police.

Four times a month

One of the victims, who requested anonymity, said the police launched the raids about four times a month, where about 30 people are detained at any one time.

If the detainees refused to pay the bribes, they face the risk of losing their jobs and family if they were remanded in the police lock-up for several days, the victim lamented.

"I stopped using drugs and just got married last year...my wife did not believe that the government was giving me medicine that was ketamine positive and threatened to divorce me, " he said.

"I was ultimately acquitted by the courts, but how do I make back the losses after being jailed for around one month as I had no money to bail myself out," he added.

"The police and court cannot give us any black and white to prove our innocence to our family or employers," he stressed."We only have a letter issued by the doctor."

Ever since then, the victim said he would refrain from carrying his card with him, as that would only "reconfirm my identity as a money tree".

He added that when the police find the card on him, they would say to him "bagus, bagus (good, good)".

On how much bribe they allegedly paid, the victim said it would depend on the cash in his wallet.

"If you RM450, for example, and offered only RM50, they will not accept it. It would only be okay of we offered them about RM400," he claimed.

Possible abuse

Meanwhile, Koay said that the methadone management treatment was a good policy but there were weaknesses in the implementation process which exposed the former drug addicts to possible abuse.

NONE He added that he would raise the issue with Health Minister Liow Tiong Lai ( left ), Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng and Penang Police chief Ayub Yaakob.

DCP Ayub has told the media that the police were responding to complaints by the government hospitals and clinics that drug pushers have been loitering and creating trouble within the premises.

He added that the police wanted to prevent drug addicts from abusing the methadone treatment by probing their activities.